Pushing String: Leadership And Attitude

The other day, someone said, once again, that an issue we were discussing was like pushing string. She said it with the sigh of resignation in her voice. I understand the metaphor, but the people saying it are stuck looking at the problem wrong. Immediately, two solutions to their dilemma come to mind. First, add a little water, freeze the string. Voilà! Push that string wherever your little heart desires. If that is too hard, then roll it into a ball or put it on a spindle. Now, we can push, roll, carry, and even throw it. The problem is the predisposition to the inevitability of the issue—there is no reason to look for a solution because it is out of our control. Worse than that, we are so defeated that we rarely ask the question "Why are we trying to push that string?"

The C-Suite's Offhand Request

This is never more evident than when orders come down from senior executives. Someone in the executive team mentions to his or her direct reports that a new report would be nice and, within minutes, the entire organization is realigned to complete the new report to please Ms. or Mr. C-Suite. Middle management overlooks the alternative of asking some simple validating questions to confirm priorities. Rather than probing and explaining the impact of implementing the new request, all other tasks become subordinate and everyone's schedules are re-planned to the new precedence.

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What Would Leaders Do?

Surrounding themselves with people who routinely ask these questions or supply the required information.

I cheat. Since I am never an employee, I am, rightfully or not, immune to hopping over three or four levels of management and asking the question, "Is this new assignment really more important than what we are doing right now?" More often than not, the answer is "no," and the theatrics of trying to meet the executive's off-hand request quickly subside.

The source of this problem lies at the feet of the executives. They are the ones that set the tone and create a culture that is reactionary to their requests and stifle the subordinate's ability to question and set priorities. In these cultures, middle managers spend an inordinate amount of time guessing how to please their bosses at the price of getting the company's work done.

Leading Your Leaders

At this point, many would resign to throwing their hands up in despair, surrendering to the notion that management is all fouled up. My approach is to "push a little string." Executives do not have an exclusive on leadership. Leadership is a trait that all of us should be honing—regardless of our organization's culture. All these situations need is a little upward leading. Here are some rules to follow:

Be passionately dispassionate. Objectivity is paramount. Passion is what everyone says they want, but when you are solving a problem, where emotions flare, stick to the facts. Make sure the pros and cons are objectively laid out in a logical manner to make a decision.

Explain the problem. As so elegantly said by NASA's Mr. Wayne Hale, "remember that your leaders are not very smart." Assuming your leaders know the detail, or even the subject, of the issue you are addressing is a fatal mistake. You know every intimate detail of what you and your team are working on; your leaders do not, nor should they. They need the problem explained in concise, high-level, decision-making terms so they can give informed direction.

Tell your leaders how to solve the problem. Always have two or three viable solutions to problems you escalate. Their job is to make decisions rather than figuring out all the workable solutions. They hired you to come up with the options.

Ask your leaders for clarification and mentoring. If you and your team are having trouble establishing a set of practical solutions, ask for guidance. Although your leaders are often far from the technical aspects of your job, they once were doing what you are now, maybe with a typewriter, but they were there. They have a wealth of experience. Remember the adage, "Old age and treachery will out maneuver youth and skill."

The Right Problem Gets The Right Solution

The challenge is not pushing string. The challenge is looking past the obstacles and our biases and creating new methods to address them. What may seem impossible is only that way since we framed it incorrectly. Change the frame of reference and we can create new innovative solutions. In the case in point, deliberately taking steps to adopt the traits of a good leader, rather than sticking with those of a follower, will calm the seemingly knee-jerk reactions of lame leadership.

...And You?

How have you circumvented problems by changing the problem definition? Everyone would like to hear your technique.

Related items

45% of middle managers cannot name one of the top five corporate goals.

64% of cross department/functional issues are poorly resolved.

And maybe as you could expect from this:

53% of companies cannot react timely to new opportunities.

You do not need to be a rocket scientist to know that this trajectory is not going to launch most companies’ latest strategic plans successfully. In fact, these data might make you feel that middle management would be better suited as test dummies for the next generation of manned space-vehicle. Granted, the data show there is a dearth of leadership in middle management, but executive tier has a culpable hand.

The other day a Latvian student contacted me for my views the connection between culture and success criteria—an important and intriguing topic. After working in Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, Japan, Israel, United States, and Canada, I wear many scars of both blatant and subtle cultural violations. I also know that within a culture one person's success is often another person's failure. So, after dispelling concerns about clicking on some random email link, I completed her survey (please feel free to take it yourself). In the process, I struck up a friendship with the student, Kristine Briežkalne, who is studying at Riga International School of Economics and Business Administration . She has some interesting views and presented me with a Venn diagram showing four frames to a project (business, client, project management, and growth perspectives) and how they intersected. As the diagram is part of her Master's thesis, I will let you ponder the how to label the overlapping areas (an eye-opening exercise).

There is a reason we do not teach classes on fixing failing projects. Many a cynic feels that we simply do not want to teach our trade, however, our reason is far nobler—we should be teaching prevention rather trying to create white knights to save the day. It is the same philosophy as building a fence at the cliff's edge rather than an emergency room at its base. Our language is replete with idioms telling us to look past the symptom and address problems at their root cause. 'An ounce of prevention versus a pound of cure' or 'a stitch in time saves nine.' Please, feel free to supply your own in the comments. Unfortunately, most of our businesses loathe this philosophy, waiting to address an issue until it is irrefutably broken.

It was such an innocuous question, "Working on an article; what is the biggest problem you see with project governance at orgs? Can you comment?" Can I comment? Really? That is like cheese to a mouse. Where could I start—bureaucracy, draconian process, poor executive sponsorship, disengaged leaders? Plenty of fodder, because they all lead to project failure. I fired off, "Creating an over bureaucratic morass stifling innovation & implementing process instead of cultivating leaders." Then the maelstrom started and it went directly to the gap between the executives and projects managers. Naomi Caietti, Robert Kelly and I had a great conversation. Most of the thread is below.

After nearly 30 years of project work, I struggle to understand the role of a project management office (PMO). Even though, I have written of the pros and cons, and read a plethora of articles, opinions, and how-to guides little has been done to convince me that the PMO is reducing project failure. It seems to be nothing more than a tool to fill a void in leadership? Even the acronym, which is so widely thrown around, has little meaning as the "P" has no less than four meanings. It is an executive's crutch for their lack of understanding in how projects work. These, like other, unattended holes in the corporate accountability create opportunities for new and greater bureaucracies and empires that further obfuscate accountability.